Parents: Reasons to Keep Kids Active

Two new studies show youth who exercise are healthier later in life.

Kids who play soccer, swing on the monkey bars or get other forms of exercise not only lower their risk of childhood obesity, have improved concentration and sleep better, they’re more likely to be healthy adults, two new studies show.

One study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, analyzed data from the existing Danish European Youth Heart Study, which examined health indicators in 332 boys and girls over a 12-year period. The kids performed back extensions and crunches; their cardiovascular fitness was tested using a bicycle ergometer test; and cardiovascular risk factors including blood pressure, weight and cholesterol were measured.

The researchers found that youth with greater muscle strength were less likely to develop risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease as young adults, regardless of their weight.

The second study looked at the benefits of PE class on bone health. Researchers followed two sets of kids for six years, beginning when they were seven to nine years old. One group of 808 boys and girls had 40 minutes of physical education during school every day, totaling more than three hours per week. The control group did only 60 minutes of exercise per week.

The more active youth had greater bone density at the end of the study and their risk of sustaining a fracture did not increase, as has been previously found. The authors concluded that kids should be encourage to exercise.

In a separate but related study, some of the same researchers analyzed the bone density and fracture rate of former male athletes who were 50 to 93 years old and who hadn’t exercised regularly in roughly 30 years. Unlike a control group, the athletes had maintained most of their bone mass later in life and had a lower risk of sustaining a facture.

The researchers believe the two sets of data suggest that activity levels in kids translate to less risk for broken bones throughout their lifetime.

“According to our stud[ies], exercise interventions in childhood may be associated with lower fracture risks as people age, due to the increases in peak bone mass that occurs in growing children who perform regular physical activity,” says lead author Bjorn Rosengren, M.D., Ph.D., of Skane University Hospital, Malmo, Sweden.

To help keep your kids active, here's a guide to encouraging your children to run.